The Green caldron - University Library

2 The Green Caldron
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert have disappeared—only John Jones
and Mary Smith remain. They are tired. They turn and look back, recalling
their moment of glory. Silently, they pull their worn coats about them and
walk into the lonely, bitter wind of winter. They are shivering. This is the
theatre.
Memories
Nancy Lou Russell
Rhetoric 101, Theme 3
KT SEVENTEEN I ALREADY HAVE MANY MEMORIES THAT
come to mind at a familiar sight or sound. Of all those memories,
however, one set means the most to me. These memories do not tell
a long story. In fact, they do not tell a story at all. They are just a series
of little incidents that, together, are the most important influence in my life.
I am not sure which incident came first, nor when I first realized that
anything was happening. My memories do have a driving force, though,
that binds them together. Each memory is a lesson in the art of living.
One of my most enduring memories is of my grandfather's farm just
west of the little prairie town of Gays, Illinois. The big dining room table
was stretched out full length and straining under the heaps of food it bore.
Around the table sat three generations of a family—my grandfather's sisters,
my mother's brother and sister, my brother and cousins, and, of course, the
husbands and wives of the family. This was no commonplace meal, but a
festival in celebration of being brought together once more from homes across
the nation. When each had eaten his fill, the storytelling would go on for
hours as I listened wide-eyed. There was the story of the old buggy my
grandfather helped load on an empty freight car one Hallowe'en, and the
tale my uncle told of hoisting a cow into the top of a silo. I remember hearing
the story of how my grandfather and his brother put in the first area telephone
line between their farms. As I think back on those feasts, the faces
around the table are blurred, and the stories are a little hazy; but I can still
hear the laughter ringing out across the years. I can remember that special
glow the old dining room seemed to take on as the family sat down to dinner.
The warmth of love and laughter filled the room until it seemed the walls
must burst. In that old room, around that old table, I learned the sound and
joy of loving and laughing and being together.
I learned something else, too, on that old farm of my grandfather's. I
used to walk with Grandpa as he did the evening chores. I petted the newborn
calves and watched the old hens tend their chicks. I saw the corn grow tall
and helped bottle-feed the orphaned lambs. I helped plant the half-acre